Beginning Again....

Four weeks ago today, I woke up without an alarm. I woke up without any clients to schedule, no work to-do list, no clients waiting for me to text back, no end of week billing, just a head buzzing with ideas like I usually do first thing in the morning... A workshop I want to create, an activity for my girls group, a new Pilates sequence I want to to try, a meditation script that downloaded into my consciousness while I slept. That morning four weeks ago, however, I was officially "retired". Is that the right word? The weeks before I had wrapped up my final Women's Wisdom Yoga Circle series and the day before, I had seen my last Pilates clients. An incredibly talented young woman had taken over my studio. I had packed up my reiki suite, brought home dozens of yoga blankets, blocks & bolsters & even loaded up my Pilates reformer in my car. I cried lots of tears as each client that week wrapped their arms around me, brought cards & gifts, spoke beautiful words & wished me well. Hard to dispute this was certainly the end of an era.

Perhaps it was also a new beginning? The choice to close this version of Radiant Life Health & Wellness, was to make space for me something new... The yes to so many big dreams! Days later, I loaded up my car, headed to my new home in Delaware to start school. At 52 years old, I was a full-time student again! Four weeks in, I still can't believe that. I have been out of college over 30 years...I am a student again, finally doing what I dreamed of doing back them but lacked the faith in myself to do!

I also started a book that week, Between To Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad (this is a beautiful read btw!) that surely was divinely orchestrated. As a very young adult, Jaouad was diagnosed with leukemia & begins to write as a means of coping. She poses the question"What would you write if you knew you were going to die tomorrow?" The answer burst forth in my heart clearly without out hesitation, Beginning Again.

Here I was starting over, AGAIN! I have had many beginnings throughout my life, some were forced upon me, unexpectedly, tragically, traumatically, while other beginnings may not have been willful, were at least anticipated. Some of these fill us with grief, sorrow, anger or confusion. Other times, beginnings are choices made freely, sometimes with excitement & wild abandon, other free choices are anxiously made in the face of fear while my trembling hand embraced the hand of faith. The emotions are a continuum, a full spectrum of feelings as we start out. One thing is certain, beginnings regardless how they come about, are in essence all about hope, faith & possibility!

The morning Jaouad asked that question, I had to get my journal out & start writing. I filled pages. I journal most days, but this was something different. Her questions pierced my heart & what has been flowing from that opening has been deep medicine. What a way to christen this new beginning. I used to write here in this space regularly. I am not sure if this will make its way out into the world as I have also taken a social media break as part of my new beginning (future post LOL). I just know that writing about this & sharing feels important & healing.

I have typically been a big dreamer & in most ways lived courageously. I would rather take my last breath in the middle of an unfinished new beginning than to keep existing in a life that leaves me feeling drained, fragmented & disconnected from myself & others. I wrote a list of close to 25 monumental new beginnings I have had in this lifetime already. Some I chose, others I had no control over. Looking back, each phase had elements there were terrifying, full of trepidation but also thrilling. Yet, I trusted & just knew I had to do most of these thing, they were somehow part of my soul contract. There have been some "micro" beginnings & perhaps what some would call failures, but I absolutely see them as redirections! Nothing has caused disaster, death or destruction - all opportunities for me to expand, learn & grow.

A while back I said to my beloved as we were discussing next phases of life, retirement & big adventures, "I don't want to do any more hard things, I just want to ride out the next couple of decades easily." LOL! Yet here I am! This newest beginning feels like one of the hardest new chapters I've begun, but it feels so good to finally say yes to my heart after 30 years & to come back home to the water. I know this is where I am supposed to be right now. The self-doubt & uncertainty are all just an invitation to possibility, freedom & hope! I hope you will join me in dreaming big for yourself & in trusting in the power of uncertainty!

The Uncertainty Pledge: Whenever I feel the anxious, queasy energy of uncertainty & notice myself overplanning, overthinking & grasping for control, I place my hand on my heart & gently remind myself, 'Uncertainty is where possibility lives. Uncertainty is where freedom lives. Uncertainty is where hope lives.'

-Nicola Hobbs